Re: [tied] "Niggers of India"

--- Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:

>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 1:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [tied] "Niggers of India"
>
>
> > Daniel J. Milton wrote:
> >
> > > Patrick, explain your interpretation of <niger>
> ("etym. dub." in
> > > the references I have handy).
> > > For a start, is there any reason to believe
> that the word
> > > primarily referred to persons, dark or
> thin-haired? The adjective
> > > seems to have gone with dark skies, woods,
> plants, etc. just as readily.
> >
> > It means 'black' or 'dusky, gloomy, mournful,
> unlucky, bad...', and
> > almost always refers to "other things" rather than
> humans (except when
> > used as a surname). It is often contrasted with
> <albus> or <candidus>
> > (never with, say, <pilo:sus> or <villo:sus>) and
> treated as a synonym of
> > <ater> or <umbro:sus>. As for its derivatives, see
> <nigror> 'blackness',
> > <nigresco:> 'turn black, grow dark', etc. Surely,
> <nigrescentes dentes>
> > means 'teeth going black', not *'teeth losing
> hair'.
> >
> > Piotr
>
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> PIE had words that properly (originally) meant
> 'black' (*mer-) or 'gray'
> (*k^er-).
>
> I was not suggesting that /niger/ meant 'hairless'
> or 'scantily haired' in
> Latin - ever.
>
> But rather that the term _originated_ as a
> designation for people
> _incapable_ of growing a 'mane', loosely falling
> hair behind the head:
> 'locks', which was subsequently applied to black
> Africans, many of whom are
> notable in this respect.

****GK: As Dan and Piotr have pointed out, "niger" is
a Latin term of doubtful origin meaning "black"
(etc..). It takes a very special kind of logic to
believe that an original meaning of "incapable of
growing a lock" (or something along those lines) in
some non IE language would have developed into the
attested Latin sense of "dark" "black" etc. You seem
to say that the "original" "lockless" was
misinterpreted by Latins (or others, or other IE's if
there are such indications) to mean "black" etc..
because those so designated happened to be black, a
characteristic more evident to the IE's than that they
were "lockless", and that SUBSEQUENTLY this term
("niger") began to be applied to things "dark" etc..
OTHER than humans. Not very likely.******

>

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